Bought And Paid For

More than 15,000 Aetna customers could see their health insurance premiums drop by between 5 percent and 19.5 percent later this year, reflecting, at least in part, a new federal requirement that limits how much insurance companies can spend on nonmedical costs.

Beginning this year, the federal health reform law requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of the money they collect in premiums on health care costs for individual and small-group plans, and 85 percent for large-group plans. The percentage is known as a medical loss, or medical care, ratio. Insurers that don’t meet the mark will have to give rebates to customers.